Hell On Both Earths
by lostinfantasies
Summary: What if Doomsday had ended differently? AU, spoilers for the new series 1 and 2
1. Chapter 1

She knew she'd never see him again from the moment she saw her.

She was pale. Grief-stricken. Heartbroken and inconsolable. Sobbing until she couldn't sob anymore, when she hadn't the energy and all she could do was to stare into space and silence and try to come to terms with the situation. Sarah-Jane Smith sighed, staying silent as she watched the girl staring outside the window and looking at nothing in particular, clutching the mug between her hands as if she was holding on for dear life. Neither had spoken for five minutes.

An hour before, she'd received a phone call. She'd given the girl her mobile number and other contact details a while ago, and asked her to call if something came up. And she did. Rang up in tears, crying, unable to get her words out. Took her a while to calm down and to tell her that something had indeed come up and would they "be able to meet?", as, according to Rose, she was all she had left. Her mother'd gone.

She supposed she knew then, really. He was never coming back. Something had happened, something had happened which meant he was never going to come back.

The Doctor was gone.

-+

It took six days before Jackie Tyler emerged from the bedroom, exploring her new surroundings for what seemed like the first time, ultimately deciding that she didn't like what she saw and that whatever happened, she was absolutely not going to stay there. She was going to find a way back, her way back, and find her daughter.

Find Rose.

"Jacks...you can't get back there. The Doct -"

"My daughter's there. I don't care what the Doctor says. I'm gonna find a way back."

"Jacks -"

"You gonna help me out or not?"

-+

"What do you remember, Rose?"

Rose closed her eyes. "The void."

"The void?"ﾝ

"He called it 'Hell'."

"Hell,"ﾝ Sarah-Jane whispered. "What happened? What else?"ﾝ

"Daleks. Lots of them. Millions."ﾝ

"Yeah, I saw them,"ﾝ Sarah-Jane nodded. "So did half of London, by the looks of it. And then they just sort of...went. The Cybermen too. Disappeared."

Rose nodded. "Into the void."ﾝ

"Into the void."

-+

"You know, I really wished you hadn't saved me."

Pete Tyler glanced up, watching as the man who'd once been sat next to him now stood up, staring out over the roof ledge. The Doctor sighed, seating himself down on the ledge and moving so his legs dangled from the side. Pete immediately stood up, nervously approaching him. "Doctor - "

"I'll never see her again."

"Come away fr -"

"She's beautiful, you know that? Utterly, utterly beautiful. Fantastic too. Saved more lives than you've had hot dinners," he grinned, watching the cars on the road. He sighed. "I lost the TARDIS too. I'm stuck here. How depressing is that? The TARDIS, stuck on the other Earth, so I can't get out of this bloody universe and find Rose. Mind you," he paused, "the chances are of finding a rift or something...I wouldn't be able to get back even with the TARDIS anyway."

"Doctor - "

"Guess Rose was right! Guess I'll have to get a mortgage! A house and a mortgage! A job! Yes, a job! Oh, but I don't want to work in a shop though. All that stock-taking and price-checking and dealing with Old Mrs Higgins from down the road who's come to refund her jacket potato because she cooked it all wrong and no-one told her that she wasn't supposed to stick it in the dishwasher. That's boring. Know of anywhere that's looking for someone, Petey-boy?"

"I -"

"Preferably somewhere that doesn't mind the fact that I'm an alien and I've not got much of a CV. I don't think 'annoying good old Queen Vic' will impress them much, even if she did knight me."

-+

Three weeks later, after Rose had spent days and nights at Sarah-Jane's house trying to come to terms with things, they found the TARDIS in the basement at Torchwood, which was - strangely - rather deserted. Sarah-Jane sighed, remarking that perhaps the authorities weren't ready to admit that the Torchwood organisation were practically responsible for the events, with all the ghost shifts and that. Perhaps, she thought, they'd disbanded for good. Rose shook her head as she fumbled for her key. "There's other offices. There's at least two in the North, there's one in Glasgow, and there's one in Cardiff. There's one down in Brighton too. They're all still up and running."

"How do you know?"

"Looked it up when you were on the phone. Computers are still logged in. Don't think anyone had the chance to log off. Ah," she smiled, pushing the door open. "There we go. Don't suppose you know how to fly this thing?"

Sarah-Jane frowned. "Don't you? After the whole...Bad Wolf thing?"

"I remember bits. And the Doctor showed me a few things, like how to set a year and a place. Nothing else though. What about you?"

"Same. Bits and pieces. The basics, really."

"Reckon we'll manage?"

"We're gonna have to."

-+

"He's going mad, Mickey."

Mickey Smith shook his head. "He always has been. Right from since I first met the bloke. 'Sides, wouldn't you be?"

"If it'd been Jacks then yeah, I would've."

-+

The estate still looked the same as ever.

Big, haunting blocks of concrete. Graffiti. Posters stuck over posters stuck over posters stuck to the walls near the local garage, advertising "MC nights" and pub quizzes and gigs. They were dirty, some torn and some not stuck up properly, and some left lying in the gutter nearby, probably down to some kid who wanted a bit of pocket money but didn't want the work.

He grinned. At any moment, Rose would come tearing around the corner, with some clothes and belongings and nic-nacs all shoved in a bag without a care or a damn in the world. And she'd drop the bag and run towards him, and hug him, and tell him never to leave her again.

_No._

That was wrong.

It was never going to happen.


	2. Chapter 2

The list of the missing, completed and finalised, had been in national publication for days. Names and ages and locations and photographs appeared in the newspapers - the tabloids and the broadsheets, even in the free ones on the buses, and the local papers - and it wasn't long before many people began to realise that the missing were most likely never to return. The sad truth was that they were probably all dead.

What was puzzling though, what confused the authorities, the police and the search teams and the army and this and that, was that there were hardly any bodies. Nothing to account for the huge number of the missing. A few here and a few there, in London only (which was extraordinary in itself), but that was all.

The rest just seemed to...vanish, off the face of the Earth.

+-+

He'd been standing there for hours, waiting. Hoping she would come running from around the corner any second. She would. He knew she would. She wouldn't leave him alone. She wouldn't leave the Doctor all on his own. He sighed, resting against the wall nearby; she'd probably be angry with him, knowing her, for leaving her. She'd probably hit his arm, or slap him across the face, something he hoped definitely would not happen (she was her mother's daughter, in any case, and that had to count for something). But at least she'd be there, and she'd probably hug him anyway after, take his hand, and they'd walk off in the direction of the TARDIS, excited about whatever was heading their way, what new planets to explore.

Wait a minute.

The TARDIS.

He frowned. Where on Earth was it?

And where the hell was Rose?

+-+

"Looks like she's on our side! It's all in English!"

Sarah-Jane grinned. They'd been in one of the (many) libraries for what felt like hours now, searching through books and papers and journals for anything that would help. Notes on geography, history, physics, chemistry, computers...anything. Rose laughed as she held up a book. "Hey, why on _Earth_ would he have a copy of the Kama Sutra?"

"He what!" Sarah-Jane made a beeline for the book. Rose shook her head. "All this time, and he never once told me."

"Perhaps he was embarrassed?"

"Or, _maybe_, he was doing 'research'."

Sarah-Jane laughed, and chucked the book to Rose. "Didn't he know that the best sort of research is out there in the field?"

"Sarah-Jane!" Rose looked at her, shocked. She beamed. "Ah, but, do you mean literally, or -"

"Oh, metaphorically, definitely," Sarah-Jane grinned. "After all, what would I know about -"

"Oh, I don't know. Back in the day, maybe!"

"Hey, I'm not that old!" she laughed. Watching as Rose placed the book on top of a pile (they'd marked it, mentally, with "Literary Porn", and were rather surprised to find that there were too many books for just the one shelf), she smiled, catching Rose's eye. "What?"

"Nothing."

"No, what?"

She sighed, and grinned. "It's just...it's good to see you smiling again."

"It's good to have something to smile about."

Sarah-Jane cocked her head. "How're you doing, though? Really?"

Rose shrugged her shoulders, concentrating on the selection of books in front of her, sorting through each one according to the pile she felt they belonged to ("Literary Porn" seemed to gain an extra five). She smiled, still focusing on the task in hand. "I'm good, y'know. Getting there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

+-+

The reality of it all was shit, to be honest. Total and utter _shit_. Rose was gone. Jackie was devastated. Pete was trying to figure out how to comfort Jackie best in all of this (too many times they'd argued, after she screamed and shouted at him to leave her alone, because he wasn't her husband and "he never could be" and he shouldn't be trying to replace "her" Pete). He'd stuck by her though. Told her she needed him whether she wanted to admit it or not, and that he didn't care how bloody stubborn she was - she needed him, and that was that.

But it wasn't. Not really.

After all, there was still the Doctor to deal with.

He was worse, now. Mad. Madder than before, even, if that had ever been possible, something Mickey used to think to himself could never happen.

He wasn't the Doctor, not anymore. Not the Doctor he knew, anyway. Not the Doctor he'd met long ago, the strange man in a leather jacket who harped on about how "fantastic" everything was. Not the Doctor who defended the Earth against an Queen tribute band (because, Mickey thought, really, that's all they were. The video of the Sycorax announcement had been broadcast again Christmas evening, on the national news, and if he was honest, that was the very first thing that came into his head). He certainly wasn't the same Doctor who threatened to send all of the Daleks and all of the Cybermen to Hell.

Mickey sighed. Perhaps he really wasn't the Doctor.

Perhaps, without the TARDIS, he couldn't be.

Just who was the Doctor, anyway? What was it? A title, passed down or given? Something you received the moment you passed your TARDIS driving test? Mickey knew he wasn't a medical doctor as such. In fact, he probably wasn't even a doctor of anything. He was just...the Doctor. What did it all mean though?

Was the Doctor always "the Doctor"? Perhaps he was only "the Doctor" since he began travelling in the TARDIS, because with the TARDIS he could do all of the things that made him known as "the Doctor".

Mickey frowned. Whatever it was, right now it wasn't important. Not as important as other things, anyway. Like actually finding him.

He'd been missing for hours now. Mumbled something about "going for a walk" and "sightseeing", and hadn't returned since.

And, with Pete trying to console Jackie and Jackie trying to push Pete away, Mickey was dismayed to find that he might be the only one who cared.


End file.
